I know this isn’t the cute and fun kind of entry we usually do, but it is an important issue that I’d like to address. Texas schools policing children? I could hardly believe my eyes as I read this article in The Guardian. Hundreds of schools in the state of Texas, and elsewhere in the country, have their own uniformed police officers, carrying guns, to keep order in our schools and playgrounds. This sounds like something out of Ray Bradbury’s novel, Fahrenheit 451.

Childhood is the time to be wild and carefree. If kids have to worry about being arrested for dropping crumbs or throwing airplanes at eight-years-old, what kind of future do they have to look forward to? Our own U.S. attorney general, Eric Holder, has stated that this practice of using criminal citations as a means of maintaining discipline has to stop.

I am shocked that the State of Texas has nothing better to do than put hundreds of kids each DAY in a courtroom to be punished for rowdy behavior on a school bus or for getting into fights on the playground. Even more ludicrous, the article tells about a young girl charged with a criminal misdemeanor for spraying perfume on herself after being teased for smelling bad. She had to actually appear in court.

To quote the article, ”In 2010, the police gave close to 300,000 ‘Class C misdemeanor’ tickets to children as young as six in Texas for offences in and out of school…” WHAT???

We must start a petition to end this madness! I am writing to Senator Florence Shapiro and Governor Rick Perry in protest to this ridiculous demerit system. Please join me by leaving a comment.